The Deaflympics are over and, for a tiny country, Taiwan did great

TAIPEI (The China Post/ANN) - The competition, which features sports specially tailored for hearing-impaired athletes, wrapped up Sunday in the Turkish coastal city Samsun.

Taiwan has again punched above its weight at the Deaflympics, with the country coming in 12th on the medal tally with four gold, two silver and three bronze.

It finished ahead of larger, more developed countries including Germany (13), Great Britain (14), Thailand (19) and Italy (21).

The competition, which features sports specially tailored for hearing-impaired athletes, wrapped up Sunday in the Turkish coastal city Samsun. It featured 3,148 athletes from 97 countries competing in 21 sports.

Russia dominated the event with 85 gold medals, over four times as many as second-placed Ukraine's 21. South Korea was third (18) followed by the host country (17) and China (14).

Taiwan's 12th-place finish was better than in the 2013 Games in Bulgaria.

Chinese Taipei's best performance on the medal tally was when it hosted the event in 2009. That year it finished fifth, picking up 11 gold, 11 silver and 11 bronze.

According to the Sports Administration, the Taiwanese delegation to this year's competition comprised 106 people, with 61 athletes competing in 12 of the 21 sports.